A lane departure warning (LDW) system provides the functionality of alerting a driver of a vehicle when the vehicle departs a lane in which it is travelling without use of lane change indicators. In this regard, a LDW system interprets a lane departure without the use of a turn signal (e.g., when the vehicle is travelling at or above a particular speed) to be an unintentional lane departure. LDW systems respond to such an unintentional lane departure by providing audible feedback to the driver, by providing visual feedback to the driver, by providing tactile feedback to the drive, and/or by providing a steering input to counteract the unintended lane departure.
Existing LDW systems are nominally calibrated for detecting instances of unintentional lane departure based on a known width (e.g., track width and/or overall vehicle width) of a vehicle in which a particular LDW system is implemented. Presently, if a warning by a LDW system of a vehicle is needed based on a different track width and/or overall width, existing LDW systems do not offer a solution for appropriately updating/modifying a pre-set track width and/or overall width calibration for the vehicle. For example, when a vehicle equipped with a LDW system is pulling a trailer, the trailer is often wider than the vehicle. Furthermore, even when towing a trailer that has an overall width that is equal to or less than the width of the vehicle, side view mirrors that extend farther away from the vehicle than standard equipment mirrors (i.e., extended width side view mirrors) can sometimes be temporarily mounted on the vehicle to improve viewing performance. Such extended width side view mirrors are often used in the case where a trailer is relatively long regardless of its overall width. As such, these extended width side view mirrors now become the outer most portion of the vehicle.
Thus, there is a need for a solution to allow a vehicle operator to calibrate a LDW system of a vehicle for a set of LDW parameters at least partially based on a width of a trailer and/or non-standard vehicle equipment such as, for example, extended width side view mirrors.